


Proud

by Persephoneshadow



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Aromantic Meg, Asexual Castiel, Bisexual Chuck Shurley, Bisexual Dean, Coming Out, Everyone Is Alive, Everyone Is Gay, Fluff, Gen, Genderqueer Character, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, M/M, Multi, Pansexual Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2016-06-08
Packaged: 2018-07-13 01:15:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7132130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Persephoneshadow/pseuds/Persephoneshadow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Why is it the summer of love in our living room?”</p><p>“We’re all making shirts for pride this weekend!” Charlie explains excitedly.</p><p>“P-pride?” Dean echoes, his brain having been reduced to that of a parrot. “As in the…the gay kind?”</p><p>“Well, technically the whole month of June is pride month,” Charlie explains helpfully. “Which you would know if you checked the google calendar. But this is for the parade on Sunday. We’re getting our flag on.”</p><p>“Sunday?” Dean’s stomach drops. “Sunday is father’s day.” </p><p>Charlie raises an eyebrow and Dean opens his mouth to explain, or more like ask if that means Charlie (and apparently everyone they know?) is going to be running around the house pride-ing it up on the one day his dad is visiting. And if he has to participate cause...well. Uncomfortable reasons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Proud

**Author's Note:**

> So. Here's my little celebration for pride month! I tired to fit in as many flag and orientations/identities as I could though I'm sure I missed some. Enjoy and happy pride!

Dean did not expect to walk into an arts and crafts fair in his living room on Thursday, yer here he is. He had expected to get off work, come home and hang out with his roommates, and make dinner before his evening class. But no, that is apparently not in the cards today because…well, he doesn’t know why. Probably should get on that.

“What the hell?” Dean asks no one in particular. The sofa and chairs have been pushed to the edges of the room while the kitchen table and a card table have been pulled in and sit lined with what looks like cut up garbage bags as people sit around them and ignore Dean. “Anyone gonna fill me in?” he says a bit louder.

“Hey, Dean! We were worried you wouldn’t make the party!” Charlie chirps. Jumping up from her work station, she moves to hug him but stops herself, thankfully, since she’s wearing rubber gloves covered in…dye? And are those…white cotton shirts in a pile on the sofa?

“The…tie dye party?”

Amazingly, he hears Cas sigh from all the way across the room. “It’s been on the house google calendar for two weeks, Dean,” Cas says without looking up from his extremely interesting task of precisely folding a plain tee. Dean rolls his eyes.

“You mean the calendar you guys are obsessed with that I never look at."

“I told you I can set it up to send notifications on your phone,” Charlie shoots back. “It’s not our fault you’re so…analog.”

Cas’s friend Meg snickers from where she sits beside him. They’re next to another gal with dark hair who Dean’s seen hanging out with Cas a few time before, but has never actually talked to. Hannah maybe? He figured her for a girlfriend at one point, then he met Meg and revised. Then he got to know Meg and just…started suffering.

“Okay, I’ll try this again…” Dean says, tearing his eyes away from Cas’s tousled hair. “ _Why_ is it the summer of love in our living room?”

“We’re all making shirts for pride this weekend!” Charlie explains excitedly.

“P-pride?” Dean echoes, his brain having been reduced to that of a parrot. “As in the…the gay kind?”

“Well, technically the whole month of June is pride month,” Charlie explains helpfully. “Which you would know if you checked the google calendar. But this is for the parade on Sunday. We’re getting our flag on.”

“Sunday?” Dean’s stomach drops. “Sunday is Father’s Day.” 

Charlie raises an eyebrow and Dean opens his mouth to explain, or more like ask if that means Charlie (and apparently everyone they know?) is going to be running around the house pride-ing it up on the one day his dad is visiting. And if he has to participate 'cause...well. Uncomfortable reasons. He got in enough trouble for opting into summer classes (like most of his geek friends) and staying in town in their rented house right by campus. This might by a bridge too far.

“Maybe the schedulers counted on our daddy issues making that not a problem,” a lazy, British voice comes from the non-Cas table. Dean opens his mouth to retort, fixing Crowley with a look. The older student just smirks and squirts the shirt in his hands with some yellow dye.

“You have daddy issues?” Chuck states quizzically from beside him.

“Course I do,” Crowley shrugs. “Wanker ran off when I was a wee thing. Scarred me for life.”

“Sorry, man, didn’t know.” Chuck moves to pat Crowley on the shoulder and gets a withering look over Kevin’s bent head for his trouble. “That’s crazy though. Your mom is _so hot_.”

“Please stop talking.”

“Okay, so…you’re _all_ going to the parade?” Dean asks dumbly, looking away from Crowley and Chuck and back over to Cas, who is still ignoring him. As fucking usual for the last month. Since Dean can’t stare at his eyes, he stares at his hands which are always nice and are currently stained…black? “Wait, I though pride was like, just rainbows.” He literally hears half the room sigh at his apparent idiocy, with maybe a chuckle mixed in.

“That’s just gay pride, and that’s the general thing, but different orientation have different color combos,” Charlie explains kindly.

“Yeah no one really went over that back in Kansas,” Dean mutters. It’s sort of a running joke, the opinions and knowledge that are taken for granted here on the left coast that always throw Dean for a loop. Some of the stuff people just…say out loud amazes Dean. He’s not sure how much of his naiveté is due to growing up in a one traffic light town like Lebanon and how much is just how he was raised. Being the son of a marine who had a lot of opinions on what made a man a man probably didn’t help. Then again, he lives with Cas who says stuff out loud that even Charlie raises an eyebrow at sometimes. But the guy’s always interesting. A weird, dorky, interesting, hot little guy. 

“…and over the past few years lots of different groups have developed their own flags, though there’s controversy over some of course, but there are flags for pretty much everyone, even the leather dykes. Oh, and the bears,” Charlie is finishing as Dean comes back to himself.

“Bears?” Dean echoes, gaping at his roomie in confusion.

“Yeah, like your buddy Benny down at the gumbo shack?” Charlie answers. “Big, burly, kinda hairy gay guys?”

“Benny’s gay?” Dean balks and suddenly starts going over every interaction with (and free slice of pie from) the older man over the last nine months of school. Charlie rolls her eyes at Dean’s and Dean tries to concentrate on that rather than Meg’s fucking snickering from across the room.

“But, uh, yeah, lots of different flags,” Charlie redirects with a smile. “I already finished a rainbow shirt and socks and I’m maybe gonna try pants too. Cause of the gay. My gay. Loooooots of gay...”

“Uh, cool,” is about all Dean can say. He looks over to the closer, no-longer-in-the-kitchen table where Crowley, Kevin and Chuck are working. Wait…

“Kevin, I’ve met your girlfriend,” Dean says before he can stop himself. Channing was actually in a study group with him and Kevin before she switched majors mid year, unable to withstand the breakneck pace of mechanical engineering homework. Dean kinda envies her.

“I’m just here as an ally, mostly,” Kevin says with a shrug. “But I’m making a trans pride shirt for my friend Raphael.” Kevin indicates a shirt that’s already hanging that’s vertically striped with light blue, white and pink.

“Oh, neat,” Dean says. Raphael had come along with Kevin to the house _once_ , early in the school year, and somehow almost ended up kicking Cas’s ass. To this day no one really knows what the argument was about, but it’s kind of house legend. It was one of the first times Dean had ever seen how badass Cas could be. When Dean had patched him up after, it had been the first time they’d really talked. The memory makes Dean smile and blush a bit. _Not the time, brain,_ he tells himself. Especially 'cause Cas isn't talking to him and he and his maybe girlfriend are looking at him like a squirrel that started talking.

“Uh, which one is that?” Dean asks, clearing his throat and nodding towards the rolled up shirt Crowley is now squirting with a bottle of dark blue dye, adding to the segments of yellow and magenta.

“Pansexual.” It’s actually Kevin who answers which is a bit of a relief. “I means he’s attracted to…”

“Everyone,” Crowley finishes and turns to Dean. Dean doesn’t really know Crowley well, he’s somehow attached to Cas which Dean has always assumed was part of a lost bet or life debt or something, but the guy is a bit of a dick. A dick who is currently looking Dean up and down like a piece of meat.

“Oh, uh…” Dean’s blushing so he, of course deflects. “And, uh, Chuck – that’s different from you with the whole, guys and gals thing?” Dean’s kinda proud he knew that one. But he actually lives with the guy and has seen him bring home both.

“Yeah, sorta semantics though,” Chuck answers with ease. His shirt is more of an art piece, with mostly splotches of pink, purple and blue.

“Hey, you don’t even need to tie dye, you’re already bi!” Charlie chimes back in, pinching Dean’s arm. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Cas’s head go up but doesn’t really process cause of the whole freaking out and alarms going off in this head thing.

“What? I’m…I…what?!” Dean blabbers.

Charlie looks at him like he’s speaking in tongues. Which - possible. “Your plaid?” she says carefully.

Dean looks down at the checked pink, purple and blue pattern of his over shirt. “Oh.”

“I thought plaid was the lesbian flag?” Meg pipes in and Charlie throws as spare shirt at her.

“Don’t confuse the country boy,” Charlie says. Dean still isn’t quite breathing right cause that was…close. _That_ is the reason he doesn’t ever bring hook ups home, or hasn’t actually really hooked up at all since the fall when he realized _that_ was a thing. He doesn’t really talk about _that_ with his roommates. Not that he thinks they would judge him – he’s got that covered all on his own. It’s more like the awkward conversations that might ensue and reveal the giant crush he has on one of said roommates. The one who is still staring pointedly at him with his stupid, stupid blue eyes. The one who Dean, because he’s an idiot, smiles crookedly at and drifts over to, away from one kind of awkward and into another.

“Uh, what’s black, green and…Is that supposed to be grey?” Dean asks and Meg glares up at him. It looks like she’s making a bullseye design.

“Yeah well, they don’t sell a lot of grey dye so I’m watering down the black,” Meg snipes. “And it’s the aromantic flag, before you ask. No it doesn’t mean I smell good. Want me to write it down so you can google?”

“Be nice, Meg,” Cas rumbles and Dean’s heart flutters. Jeez he’s a moron. “It means she doesn’t experience romantic attraction.” Dean fights the urge to ask what the hell that _means_ very hard, though Meg already thinks he’s an idiot, and, well, Cas _knows_ he’s an idiot so…

“I don’t do the whole roses and cuddling and candlelight thing,” Meg, amazingly, explains; probably because Cas is giving her a pointed look.

“Oh…Okay,” Dean says. “That’s, uh, interesting?” Such an idiot. Hannah seems to think so, as she very pointedly pushes out her chair and moves to the drying rack by their non-functional fireplace.

“A poet this one,” Meg purrs and Dean prays for strength.

“Dean’s actually very articulate when he’s knowledgeable on a topic,” Cas says simply and Dean sinks into a chair, not even sure if he should be embarrassed or endeared or frustrated. He’s been frustrated for months so he’ll just…stick with that.

“Uh, what’s hers?” he asks tiredly, gesturing to where Hannah is carefully unrolling a shirt diagonally stripped in green and purple with white in the middle and hanging it up to dry.

 _“Theirs_ is the genderqueer flag,” Meg answers, her tone icy. Dean’s obviously fucked up again and just waits to be told how. Cas obliges with a sigh.

“Hannah identifies as non-binary,” he tells Dean. “That means they don’t –”

“I know what that one means!” Dean snaps, just in time for Hannah to turn around and glare at him, lips pursed.

“You haven’t asked about Castiel’s,” she, wait, _they_ say sourly.

Dean looks at the shirt Cas is working on. It looks like the bottom is going to be purple, and he’s reaching for Meg’s black-grey dye.

“Uh, what ya got there, Cas?” he asks trying to sound cool and absolutely failing.

“Black, grey, white and purple is asexual pride,” Meg says and Dean actually has no idea why there’s such acid in her tone. Or why Cas is avoid both their eyes.

“Oh, uh, cool,” Dean says, trying to parse things. “That means you, uh, don’t…” he makes a vague motion in the air “anything?”

“Correct, ace equals no sexual attraction, yeah,” Meg sighs.

Dean swallows, taking in that info. Well, he’s pretty sure Meg and Cas aren’t involved now, which is sort of a relief…but that means Cas doesn’t want anyone? Even dork closet cases who have been pining over their roommates since seeing them in a Spock costume at Halloween. Dean’s still embarrassed by the drunken _pon far_ joke he made. And he's getting embarassed becuase obviously his crush was obvious and it's upset Cas. Or at least his friends.

“So, flirting and innuendos are pointless,” Hannah says, still glaring at Dean. Okay, so, maybe he teases Cas a bit once in a while in the 'uncomfortable cause the implication he actually does want Cas ia true' sort of way. Had Cas told his friends about that? It apparently isn’t something Cas wants. Dean shouldn’t be surprised. They’d gotten closer for the first part of spring semester; saying up too late filling out Cas’s pop culture knowledge or just talking. They spent a lot of time comparing notes of families and dumb brothers and their twine fears about disappointing their fathers by changing majors to do what they really wanted (Psych for Dean, Community organizing rather than accounting for Cas). Then Cas had come back from spring break shut down and distant.

“Oh, uh…” is all Dean can say by way of apology. Again. He’s sort of been trying to get back in Cas’s good graces for a while.

“I actually think I might Identify more on the demisexual or grey-asexual part of the spectrum,” Cas replies, glancing at Hannah and…is he blushing? Meg raises an eyebrow and Dean is, of course, at a loss.

“Don’t make me ask aloud, man,” Dean begs. Cas’s blue eyes meet his and Dean forgets what he’s supposed to be asking about for a second.

“I, uh,” Cas stammers uncharacteristically, tearing his gaze away and glancing at his friends. “It means I…feel like I could…occasionally experience sexual attraction to someone I was already, uh, romantically or emotionally involved with. Maybe.”

“What kind of special unicorn could get you to make that leap,” Meg asks silkily, licking her lips. Cas (maybe unwillingly?) glances at Dean. It’s small and he immediately returns his focus to his shirt but Dean sees it and it sort of makes him feel like he’s gonna faint.

“But that sort of…involvement with a hetero dude bro would be extremely pointless,” Hannah almost growls and Dean stares at her in outright shock.

“Dean’s not a dude bro!”

Dean nearly falls out of his chair jumping up to turn and look at Chuck in horror.

“I…what?” His heart is pounding now.

“You told my sister you were gay,” Chuck offers quizzically, looking between Dean and, of course, a very interested Crowley.

“Dude, she wasn’t gonna leave me alone otherwise!” Dean protests. He still shudders at the memory of Chuck’s – admittedly very hot sister – cornering him and sticking her tongue down his throat at their Spring Fling party.

“Yeah, but she says she believed you cause of the way she saw you were looking at…” Chuck shuts his mouth as Dean rounds on him. Cas seems confused as well.

“Wait, you and Amara didn’t…” Cas asks carefully, his eyes suspicious. “But I saw you with her.”

“You _what_?” Dean balks. He’d been pretty drunk that night, and yeah, maybe Amara was right, he’d spent a lot of it staring at Cas before she nearly assaulted him. But then the tonging and the groping and the NOPE had happened. He’d politely shut her down and lied his ass off. Then he’d just…gone to sleep and not talked to anyone and...Oh. OH. “Crap, no…she kissed me but. I, uh…

“You told her you were into dudes,” Charlie finishes. Like its obvious. Is it obvious?

“I, yeah…but…” Dean swallows because everyone is staring at him like he’d grown a second, gay, head.

“Wait. You hooked up with Abby, in like the first week of classes!” Meg butts in and it actually sounds more like an accusation.

“Satan’s favorite ginger?” Crowley scoffs. “You’re lucky you lived!” Dean ignores him in favor of looking at Cas who looks…hopeful? _Not_ subtly annoyed with Dean for the first time in months. So of course Dean can’t find his voice, cause he’s a chicken-shit jackass.

“So, does that mean you’re…” Chuck asks oh so unhelpfully.

This could be Dean’s moment. The one he’s avoided and thought about since that first awkward make out session with Aaron Bass sophomore year of high school. Hell, even before that back to thinking how cute Luke and Leia were and making the mistake of say that out loud and getting the worst chewing out of his eight years of life at the time from his father. And sure enough it’s his father’s face he’s seeing, not the expectant faces of his friends or Cas.

“I gotta get to…uh. Class. Work. Homework before. Before class,” Dean stammers, backing up and crashing into a table and then Kevin before rushing to the door.

“I’m sure you do,” Hannah sneers and it’s enough to push Dean all the way into the street and to his car and on to the road.

He considered driving and never coming back. He skips his evening physics lab, because fuck everything, especially shit summer classes for a major he’s good in but doesn’t love. Because he loves suffering instead he sits in his car remembering every conversation about majors he had Cas ever had. It had taken a while to get Cas to open up about how much he actually hated accounting; how his mother had practically threatened to disown him for suggesting just a minor in poetry. But Dean had given him a lecture about doing what made him happy, making his own choices, screw his family. If they loved him they would support him. God, Cas had looked at him like he was a burning bush or something. Dean had missed the way Cas looked at him after break…and now he knows why he stopped.

He doesn’t sneak back into the house until every light goes off in the windows. He pretends not to notice Cas’s is the last. At three fucking AM. He undresses and throws his stupid pink-blue-purple shirt into the corner with particular vehemence before he falls into bed and angsts himself to sleep.

 

He sleeps through most of Saturday, keeping his door adamantly closed even when first Kevin, then Chuck, then Charlie knock, offering bait to leave ranging from bacon to Settlers of Catan. He digs deeper into his homework and he’s ahead two weeks in reading assignments by the time sun sets and his phone chimes with a text notification.

**_> >Dad says eta is 0900. See you tomorrow, jerk._ **

He should see if they can meet him somewhere that won’t look like a rainbow factory exploded.  Maybe over at Shakabra Java…

A knock at his door distracts Dean before he can reply. It’s stupid that he recognizes Cas’s _knock_. Stupid that his heart leaps in his chest just a little bit.

“Dean?” Cas’s voice rumbles through the thin particle board of the door. “I know you don’t want to talk. Or I assume so, given the fact you’ve avoided us all for the last twenty four hours.” Dean smiles despite himself, glad Cas can’t see. “Any way. You don’t have to come out if you don’t want to.”

Cas _probably_ hears the crash of Dean falling out of his desk chair in shock.

“You don’t have to come out the _room_ I mean,” Cas goes on with a weary sigh and Dean is able to regulate his breathing a bit more. “But I wanted to, uh, tell you that I’m not personally…mad at you. If that was an issue.”

Dean gathers himself up from the floor without an ounce of grace and moves hesitantly towards the door.

“And I also, apologize if you were made to feel…”

“No, please don’t,” Dean says through the door. He can’t open it though. He doesn’t want Cas to do that peering into his soul thing cause he’s pretty sure Cas isn’t gonna like what he sees. Or maybe he will and that’s even scarier. “You don’t need to apologize Cas. I’m the one…”

“You have nothing to be sorry for either, Dean,” Cas cuts him off, his voice like steel through the door. “Or to be ashamed of.” Dean would beg to disagree. “It was wrong of everyone to put you on the spot. I just wanted to be clear that there’s no…hard feelings.” Dean gives a weak laugh but Cas presses on. “I would be very happy if we could…start again.”

“Really?” Dean asks before he can stop himself. He hears a soft sound – that familiar little chuckle Cas gives when he smiles; really smiles.

“Yes, Dean, really,” Cas answers. “I…I called my mom this morning, by the way.” Dean blinks. This is not where he thought the conversation was going. “I told her I’m switching majors.”

Dean has the door open before he can tell himself to stop. “You what?”

Cas grins at him. It’s the sort of look that Dean likes to think he doesn’t give people like Hannah or Meg, all gummy grin and crinkles around his eyes. “As of the fall I’ll be creating a special interdisciplinary community organizing major.”

“What’d she say?”

“I’ve never heard her swear before,” Cas says with a shrug. “But after she got that out of her system, she did what you said – told me that what mattered was if I was happy. And that was it.”

“Holy crap.” Dean pulls Cas into a hug and god _damn_ it feels like coming home. He savors it for a moment before pulling back. “Sorry, uh sorry…” Cas squints at him in confusion while Dean stammers. “I was, uh, reading about your…thing and touch aversion and…”

“Dean, as much as I appreciate you educating yourself, please know that I will never be adverse to you touching me,” Cas tells him carefully, then haltingly reaches for Dean’s hand. “In any way you feel...comfortable doing,” he adds, avoiding Dean’s eyes.

Dean twins his fingers with Castiel’s, his heart beating hard but steady. “Oh…okay then.”

Cas meets his eyes and smiles. "Please continue with the hugging."

 

The next morning, the house is a war zone. Or a mad house. Or some other metaphor for too many disorganized people that no amount of coffee will help Dean to deal with. Well, okay, maybe the mug that Cas hands him with a shy grin does help a bit.

“Why are you two smiling?” Charlie asks, of course bursting in through the back door to the kitchen at the exact wrong moment. “Wait are you not sulking anymore?”

“I was not sulking!” Dean protests. “Wait are those donuts?”

“They’re for everyone heading to the parade,” Charlie answers, snatching the boxes out of Dean’s reach and heading to their over-crowded living room.

“Charlie, it’s unreasonable to deny him pastry,” Cas sighs as he and Dean follow her. Everyone from Friday is there and then some. Charlie waves at her girlfriend Gilda who is standing by Jesse and Cesar in a massive clump of rainbows. Crowley is talking to Balthazar who Dean is unsurprised to see decked out in the Teal green and magenta of the poly flag. (What? So he googled.) He’s an exchange student like Crowley, or so they all assume but no one has been able to figure out quite where he’s from.  Of course Meg is there, arms slung around a spooked looking Kevin and Channing. Chuck is pouring what looks like bourbon into his “World’s Greatest Dad” mug in the corner.

“Charlie is right though,” Hannah declares, popping out of nowhere to glare daggers at Dean. “We all chipped in for these and Dean doesn’t need to be here anyway.”

“Hannah,” Cas intones, a warning in his voice. “Dean has every right to be here.” Dean feels color rising in his face. Especially when the whole room goes quiet. Dean tries to huddle deeper into his zip up hoodie but Cas pulls Dean’s hand out of the front pocket and holds tight.

“Castiel what…”

“The hell?” Hannah’s question is completed by a voice that makes Dean go from pink to pale in a heartbeat.

John Winchester is standing at the door, staring around the living room like he just walked into a blood orgy.

Shit. Shit shit  _shit._

“Hi Dean!” Sam pipes in, popping out from behind Dad with a broad grin and Dean almost jumps as the tension breaks. “Are you guys having a party?”

“Uh, not quite." Of course it’s Charlie that answers, her voice deceptively sweet but with a take no bull edge to it. "We’re all getting ready to go to the pride parade.”

“Well, my son is supposed to me taking his old man out for father’s day breakfast or something,” Dad replies, voice dark and his eyes never leaving Dean.

“I guess you should be on your way then,” Hannah says, tight and smug. Cas gives Dean’s hand a squeeze as he take a deep breath.

“Actually it’s gonna have to be lunch, unless you wanna come to the parade too,” Dean says, maybe a bit too fast. Everyone in the room seems to be holding their breath staring at him like he might explode at any moment. “We get donuts that way, so...”

“You’re going to the gay parade because you...want free donuts?” John asks slowly.

“No, I’m going cause I’m bisexual.”

Hannah’s eyes go wide and Gilda has to physically restrain Charlie from squealing. Everyone one else…smiles. Broad and warm. Even Crowley gives him a nod.  Well, everyone except his father.

“You’re what now?” John asks, voice faltering for the first time.

“Bisexual, means I like girls and guys. One guy specifically by the way, at the moment,” Dean goes on, buoyed by his friends’ smiles. “This is Cas. My boyfriend.”

Which people exclaim “what?!” versus which ones yelp some variation of “I knew it!” is impossible to distinguish, though he can make out Charlie's muffled scream. Dean tries to concentrate of the feel of Cas’s hand in his as he stares down an unsmiling John Winchester.

“And you feel the need to have a parade about this shit?” Dad asks and Dean winces but nods.

“Yeah. That’s the whole point. Cause it’s ain’t nothing to be ashamed of,” Dean declares carefully. “The parade and the pride thing it say that they….that _we_ are proud of who we are.” Dean tentatively releases Cas’s hand so he can unzip his hoodie to reveal his shirt. The pink, purple and blue tie dyed stripes are horizontal, the same as Cas’s. "And if you've got a problem with your son being a big ol queer...you can forget about father's day." The competition in fierce between Charlie and Cas to see who can smile the widest as the sight but the whole room looks happy for them with Chuck flashing a thumbs up. Only Hannah seems unmoved and she crosses her arms with a sigh.

“You should just be proud someone actually wants to date you?” Sam pipes, pushing past John to stick out his hand to Cas. “I’m the cooler brother by the way.”

“I’ve heard a lot of good thing about you Sam, it’s nice to meet you,” Cas smiles, shaking Sam’s hand. He turns his attention to John and offers his hand. “You as well, sir.”

Again the whole room is holding their breath. A normal person would think having this many people watching would possibly temper a bad reaction, but those people had never met John Winchester and certainly didn’t know how little he cared about the opinions of “queers.” Instead of taking Cas’s hand John looks to Hannah of all people.

“This long drink of water good enough for my kid?”

Hannah blinks, looking between John, Cas and Dean, who are both frozen. Their face isn't a stony as usual though and after a brief moment, they smile. “More than good enough, Mr. Winchester,” Hannah says tightly and Dean could just about hug them.

John glances around the insanely multi-colored room then back to Dean. He gives his son an appraising look…then a nod. “Fine, let’s go to the damn parade.”

The room bursts into laughter and chatter and Dean lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. Sam and Cas are both smiling at him and he feels lighter than he has in…well, a really long time. “Can I have a damn donut now?” he asks the room and Charlie shoves a box at him that he sets into with his family and boyfriend. (Whoa. Still weird.)

“Don’t eat all the powdered ones or Donna will kill you,” Cas warns, sweeping his thumb over Dean’s chin and just spreading the sugar. “Oh, that didn’t work.”

“There’s other ways of gettin’ it,” Dean teases through a mouth full of dough.

“Very sexy,” Cas replies rolling his eyes. He still pecks Dean on the chin though. When he withdraws they’re both blushing slightly. Then Dean remembers his father ( _who he just came out to, jesus_ ) is watching and nearly chokes.

“Oh for fuck’s sake, Frank Deveraux back at work was queerer than a three dollar bill and I lived with it. Go a head and…do whatever. As long as you’re happy.” Dean’s pretty sure he’s hallucinating at this point, but Cas is smiling too so…he’ll take it. Maybe he had built up his fear too much in his head...maybe his own advice to Cas was right.

“Later we can talk about me changing majors then,” Dean says with a shrug. He dad chokes a bit of his cruller and all Dean can do is chuckle.

“Hey, Dean?” Sam says, tugging his brother’s sleeve. Dean turns to him shocked to find his face almost level with his own.

“Yeah, Sammy?”

“I’m proud of you too.”


End file.
